


Harrien, the High Elf

by excentrykemuse



Series: Harrien Series [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 13:15:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16995681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/excentrykemuse/pseuds/excentrykemuse
Summary: It had been exactly fifteen years since Harrison Potter had survived the Killing Curse—however, he wasn’t quite Harrison Potter anymore.  He’d transformed into something not-quite-human.  Part 1 of 2.





	Harrien, the High Elf

It happened the night of October 31st, exactly fifteen years after Harrison Potter had survived Lord Voldemort. He had not gone to the feast, as usual, and was reading a Philip K. Dick novel on his bed. Then he felt a tingling in his nails. When he looked down, they were no longer chewed to the quick, but healthy and elegant and shining in the moonlight that was coming through the window. His fingers were longer, shining as well, and his hands slim. The tingling ran down his arms and up through his shoulders and he breathed out when it ran up his neck and into his face. Deciding this was a good time to lie down and let this strange—dare he think it—magic occur, he set down his book and was glad he was in a comfortable black ensemble instead of his annoying Hogwarts uniform.

When it was finished, he let himself fall into himself, his limbs feeling light but settling, his hair—his hair. He picked up several strands and saw that it was much longer and shining white in the moonlight and was paler than Malfoy’s where only candlelight’s rays reached it. Sitting up and glad that he was alone, Harrison placed his bare feet on the red rugs of the dorm and walked to the shower room where he could better look at himself.

His face was long and his ears—well, he had seen a few episodes of the original Star Trek, and they reminded him of Spock. His hair was interesting. It was nowhere near the length of Lucius’s Malfoy. However, it hung straight down to his shoulders, the previous Potter messiness of it completely gone. Parted to the side, a swath of it fell over into his eye and he kept on trying to brush it behind his pointed ear, only to have it fall into his face again. Thin eyebrows then met his gaze—and there was no scar above his still startling green eyes, though they had changed to reflect the light more, shards of blue and light refracting out of them.

He wasn’t Harrison Potter any more. He doubted he was human.

Whoever-he-was realized that he couldn’t be here anymore. It was preposterous but this wasn’t his place. Running back to the dorms, he slipped on his black trainers, found a black cloak, and took only his wand. Everything else would identify him as having once been—

His heart ached at the thought of the firebolt Sirius had given him—Harrison Potter—of the photo album—of the clothing that he had purchased for himself like this outfit that was black leggings and a black tunic that reached just above his knees. People whispered about how the half-blood Harrison Potter thought himself above himself by wearing pureblood black, but he didn’t care. It’s what his father wore in all of his photos of him—which he would never look at again.

He slipped down the moving staircases, past the great hall, his white hair the only hint that he was not a stain of black moving through the castle. He moved silently across the campus in the twilight, the moon shining through the sky, and into the forest. Whoever-he-was touched the trees and he breathed in the smell of the leaves, grass, and dirt.

Skipping through the trees, he felt a certain peace, and then he stumbled into a meadow of white flowers. Another figure in black was leaning over and picking a few with his stained hands, a basket next to him, and he got up and stared at him. His hood had fallen down, showing his strange face.

“Professor,” whoever-he-was greeted. “Why are you not at the feast?”

He looked at him in surprise. “You know the ways of our castle?”

“How could I not?” he partially betrayed himself. “You can feel the joy—I don’t think you feel it.”

“No,” Snape answered. “I care not for this date.”

Whoever-he-was wondered why. The only significance it had, other than his parents’ death, was Voldemort’s original—disappearance.

He took a step forward bravely. “Is it because of what happened? That he left?”

“You suppose me to be a sympathizer.” He watched him carefully, his lank black hair around his face.

“Is there another reason to dislike tonight?” Well, for Snape. Whoever-he-was moved around the trees and then came into the flowers, bending down, smelling the blossoms, his pale hair falling into the blooms, shining in the moonlight. Always having loved flowers perhaps due to his excessive gardening, whoever-he-was adored the scent that wafted around him.

“You have sympathies,” Snape suggested. “High elves have favored the Dark Lord in the past. I had not expected to find one so close to a human enclave.”

He turned to him sharply. High elf? Is that what he was now? How had he become one? Would he change back? “What do you know of high elves?”

“Little,” Snape answered. “Wizards know little other than you do not even care whether or not we recognize you as a race or not. Not even the Dark Lord’s Death Eaters know what he promised you for you to fight for him in the last war.”

His eyes slit. “You are a Death Eater then,” he checked. He knew it! He’d been right since his first year and Dumbledore had been wrong.

Snape inclined his head. He then paused. “This forest is perilous though full of magic.”

He stood tall. Whoever-he-was suspected that he had grown. He had been 5’7 but his tunic seemed to only go to his upper thigh and, strangely, his chest had lengthened. “What are you suggesting?”

“There is a forest, magical, around the manor where the Dark Lord currently resides. I could take you to him. You would be permitted to leave whenever you desire. You may live in the forest, if you are inclined, or given a place of respect in the manor as an honored guest. You would be free from Centaurs who may hunt you or the spiders who live deep among these trees.”

Yes. Aragog. He remembered him and his children far too well.

“How do I know he will not torture or kill me? I have no information. I cannot speak for other high elves.”

“I will personally assure your first three nights. After that, the Dark Lord would either assure your safety or not.” He bowed toward whoever-he-was.

He knew he shouldn’t be, but whoever-he-was couldn’t help but be curious. He had seen Voldemort just that past summer and been vindicated when the wizarding world was assured that he existed. He had been snakelike but his magic had been sensual, seductive. He wondered if he was always like that. “Very well.” 

Moving with him toward the center of the meadow, he tentatively let Snape place a hand around his waist and experienced Apparition. Again. How he hated it although he felt significantly less ill than usual. Whoever-he-was looked around and saw that there were albino peacocks around him, but they shone less in the moonlight than his own skin and hair.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Malfoy Manor. The Malfoys are a very prominent family.”

He accepted the explanation as it was given and followed him into the manor and up the sweeping staircase against the far wall. Whenever they passed anyone, the person would stop and stare openly at him. Whoever-he-was wouldn’t pay attention to them, thinking that perhaps that is how he was supposed to act. The other option was open wonder. However, he wouldn’t give the Malfoys the satisfaction, even if they weren’t there to personally witness it.

Whoever-he-was didn’t even realize that he had entered a room and was looking at a man who did not look like a snake. He looked between the man and Snape. The man stood and bowed to him and he nodded back to this stranger.

“This is the Dark Lord.”

“I have seen your papers. You do not look like him,” he told both Snape and the man.

“There are potions,” the man told him, “that have restored me to my human appearance.” Yes, he did look human. He had the same blue eyes and dark brown hair with an auburn sheen that he had when he was sixteen-years-old and sucking the life out of Ginny. However, while he was good looking then, he was simply the most attractive man whoever-he-was had ever encountered. He moved with the sillowy movements of a snake, his skin pale, his fingers those of a pianist.

“Do you have a name, High Elf?” the Dark Lord asked.

He paused. “No. I lost it.”

Voldemort nodded. “I am sorry for your loss. Are you in search for a new one?”

Whoever-he-was thought about it. “I had one recently. I had not thought. Can one gain a name?”

“I gave myself the name Voldemort when I lost my human name,” he replied, his eyes shining with something akin to—well, he did not know what hungry emotion it was. “Surely you may give yourself an elven name.”

“I do not know any that are not already being used,” he lied.

Snape now bowed to Voldemort. “I have guaranteed our guest three nights of safety and a place of honor in the manor or in our forests, whatever his choice.”

“Of course. We must also try and help him find a name. Can you tell us anything about yourself?”

“I am young. I am lost.” There wasn’t much else to tell. “I am missing. I will not return.”

“He also loves flowers,” Snape included, bowing toward whoever-he-was again.

“We would not wish to name you for being lost,” Voldemort told him carefully, “but we can name you for flowers. I will look through my small book of elvish words and see what options I can give you.”

As it seemed to be the correct response, he bowed to Voldemort. “I would like a bed, I think. I only have what I am wearing and a wand that was given to me. The wizard—cared for me.” It was the only story he could think of. Whoever-he-was wasn’t even sure he could wield a wand. 

“Severus,” Voldemort ordered and Snape left. There was a pause where he offered him a seat and they both sat, assessing each other.

“The high elves supported you before?” he asked. “Why?”

“How long have you been lost?” he asked in confusion.

“Since before,” he told Voldemort. “I did not know since before—Severus—“ the name was strange to him, “said. Will you not tell me?”

“I promised ore of the dragon,” he told him and whoever-he-was couldn’t do anything but lower his eyes, attempting to translate that into human English and finding that he could not.

“It is a jewel,” Voldemort told him. “There is a repository in Cornwall. Humans cannot mine it; it’s too dangerous, but high elves can. You simply need access.”

“And it is precious to us?”

“It is. Your royalty wear it in their crowns.”

High elves had royalty then. How interesting. Whoever-he-was wondered if he would ever meet another high elf. He didn’t even realize Voldemort was speaking until he was calling to him, calling him “sir.”

“Pardon?”

“Have you eaten?”

“I do not wish to be scrutinized,” he admitted. He wasn’t used to how he looked. People staring at him was too much. Far too much. 

“Would you care to dine with me? I understand high elves eat fruit.”

“And chocolate,” he added quickly. “I eat chocolate.” He was a teenage boy after all and always had a hankering after chocolate frogs. He couldn’t live without chocolate frogs.

He gave him a soft smile. “And chocolate,” Voldemort smiled, offering the way toward the door. Before they left a beautiful witch that whoever-he-was recognized as Narcissa Malfoy was told to arrange the finest rooms for him and to prepare pajamas and a robe suitable for the temperature for their esteemed guest from the elven realms, they went and had dinner in a private nook. 

Whoever-he-was was offered several different types of fruit and hot cocoa, which made him smile. 

Dinner was silent, but Voldemort was solicitous, offering him grapes and cutting him a peach. When they were finished, he walked him down a hall. “Would you like the public library with more books but more of my followers, or the smaller? They will both be virtually silent.”

Whoever-he-was hesitated. “I read Philip K. Dick novels. He’s what you wizards call a Muggle.” It was strange this way, speaking like an outsider, but he knew he could not let them guess who he was before.

“You have certainly been wandering,” Voldemort commented, leaning slightly toward him as if drawn. He opened one of the doors and allowed him to precede him and he was confronted by about eight wizards and witches on couches, all turning to look at him. Voldemort was soon behind him, his hand hovering near his, but never touching, and he was steered to a particular shelf. “There is nothing quite like you describe,” he apologized. “However, Genvieve Marchaud writes about a hybrid of technology and magic in the near future. This was back in the eighties. You may enjoy it.” He paused and then took a particular book from the shelf. 

He looked at the cover which showed a girl with a calculator and a wand behind her ear. A small number one was in the lower right hand corner. Opening it up, whoever-he-was read the first few pages and then nodded. “Thank you, Voldemort. May I retire?”

A house elf, hilariously, showed him to his rooms that were a dark blue and silver, the bed a dark wood with a pale silver-blue canopy. Kicking off his shoes, he curled up and began reading his book. It was only when he couldn’t keep his eyes open that he put on a pair of ice blue pajamas and a black robe, brushing his hair. He tried to tie it back but it was a bit too short and he gave it up for lost.

When he woke it was to the sound of birds singing. As soon as he sat up and stretched, the sound faded away and whoever-he-was realized it must be magic. He carefully got up, brushed his teeth, tried to do something with his hair and ended up braiding small portions of it and securing it with small bands he found in a glass jar he found in the bathroom. 

The same house elf was there to guide him to breakfast. He was placed on Voldemort’s right and he carefully put his wand horizontally above his plate. When he’d learned he was descended from the Peverell brothers and that Dumbledore had the eldar wand at the end of his fifth year, he might have stolen it and hidden it under a charm that made it look nondescript. Then he saw Dumbledore was wearing the resurrection stone. He still hadn’t gotten that one off of him.

He doubted he’d have the chance now.

Looking up, he saw Lucius Malfoy whom he had thought was in Azkaban, and he visibly reacted.

“Sir?” Voldemort asked.

“He looks like a boy in the forest,” whoever-he-was lied. “His hair is not as long.” Fortunately, he had been able to think quickly.

“That is my son, Draco Malfoy,” Lucius told him, bowing his head. “I had heard we had a representative from the high elves.”

Lucius looked horrible. There were bags under his eyes, which in turn looked dead. His skin was sallow and his hair was lank. He was under a great deal of stress. 

“I wander,” he corrected. “I can speak for no one.” He noticed that Voldemort had cut up an apple for him and drenched it in honey. Looking up at him, he smiled at his thoughtfulness. Was this all because he was a high elf? A traitorous part of him hoped that it wasn’t.

Changing the subject, Voldemort said, “I have a list of names for you. However, Severus told me that he found you in the moonlight smelling flowers. The name Harrien means ‘moon flower.’ Do you care for it despite how close it is to Harrison Potter’s name?”

Whoever-he-was paused and thought. “Yes. I do not like thinking of myself as ‘whoever-I-am’. It saddens me.” It had been less than a day, but still. He also liked how close it was to Harrison, though he would never tell anyone that.

“Lord Harrien, then,” Voldemort addressed his. “I give assurances that as long as you stay with us, you will receive safety and sustenance and respect.”

“Thank you, Voldemort. I had not been expecting that.”

“Why ever not?” Lucius asked.

He looked at him thoughtfully. “Don’t people usually want something and even when you give, they want and want and take and take? I am a lost elf. I can do nothing other than read books from your library and try to convince someone to go into the Muggle world to buy books by my favorite author.” He gave him a smile, which seemed to strike Lucius Malfoy mute.

“I’m sure,” the man next to his stated, “you can convince someone, as long as they are not wanted by the Ministry. I would gladly do it for you, if I were not one of that number, Lord Harrien.”

Harrien gave him a smile. He then ate a slice of his apple and closed his eyes in happiness. It seemed his palate liked sweetness. He noticed chocolate tasted even better than usual. He thought it had been the chocolate, but perhaps not.

He was walking through the garden in his bare feet three days later in a dark blue tunic that had appeared in his closet, when he heard, “St. Mungo’s.” His pointed ears pricked up and he heard Voldemort and two other voices.

“These plans seem complete.”

“The screening process for Muggleborns seems almost perfected so they cannot infect the patients or healers with their mere presence,” Voldemort added. “Yes, I’m satisfied.”

Harrien looked up, turning toward them. They were half a garden away and he picked through the flowers until he reached them. One of the other men noticed him and then all three were watching his approach. “I have an idea,” Harrien suggested.

“An idea for St. Mungo’s, Lord Harrien?” Rabastan Lestrange asked.

“You should have a Muggleborn children’s ward for accidental magic. You don’t want that on the streets. By the time they’re eighteen, they should have figured out how to suppress their magic, or perhaps you’re planning to bind it if that’s possible, but these children will need treatment and should be taken away from Muggles so as not to expose your secret.” (good; he had almost said ‘our’) At their looks, he added, “It seems to make the most sense.”

“How long have you been in the wizarding world, Lord Harrien?” the third man asked.

“Quite awhile,” he answered. “I’ve been wandering for years. Think of me as a Muggleborn. That’s about my knowledge level.” Harrien turned back to his book and didn’t realize that Voldemort was following him until he approached him three minutes later on the far side of the garden.

“I quite like your idea,” he complimented. “It is being added to our plans. Theodred is redrafting the architectural layout.”

“Good,” Harrien told him, not looking up from his book. “You know I could help you.” The idea surprised his. “Perhaps I can be your heart.” They certainly seemed to lack compassion where St. Mungo’s was concerned.

Voldemort sucked in a breath and he looked up.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” he told him quickly. “It’s just you said something a seer once told me. Yes, I accept, though you do not know what you are offering.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “What am I offering?”

“You are not a wizard.”

“The wand works.”

“That’s because you have magic in you. You are a forest being, however. If you wanted, flowers could grow where you step, vines could spring from your touch.” He reached out and touched his upper arm. It was the first time anyone had touched him since he had stopped being Harrison Potter.

“No one ever taught me,” he told him sadly. “I’m a young elf with no one there to teach me. My parents are gone—there was no one else.” He sighed. “However, I am here and one day I will be somewhere else, I daresay.” Harrien wasn’t even looking at Voldemort. Instead he was looking at his hand, at how pale it was, at the fingernails that were too hard to chew and wouldn’t break. he caressed his book. Looking up finally, Harrien smiled at him. “How do you like being known to all of England?”

“I am not certain. It was not my intention.”

“I daresay not.”

They were looking into each other’s eyes, sparkling green into blue, a pull Harrien could not explain. He wanted to move closer to him, to reach out, to—

“I have often marveled, since I met you, how your entire being could be so light, so bright, and yet your eyes have such peculiar depths.”

“I had not contemplated,” he admitted, coming out of his daze. “Is it really startling?”

“Yes. It makes you more majestic than you already are. The representatives of your people I had met were not as—effervescent—and their eyes were blue or brown. You are quite a wonder.”

He looked at him a moment and then away again. “How peculiar. I had assumed I looked quite ordinary.”

Voldemort seemed to be wondering at his next question. “How many years are you?”

“My age?” he laughed. “I’m sixteen.”

“You’re an elfling? From what I had observed, I had thought you were at least five hundred, the age of maturity. No wonder you are confused and lost.”

“I am not a child!” he insisted a little loudly, moving away from him. “I am almost an adult. I have less than a year left.”

“You’re sixteen,” he insisted. “You have not even reached your first century. You haven’t reached your second decade. Lord Harrien—“

They were close enough in the garden to be heard by a half dozen Death Eaters, but Harrien didn’t care.

“Lord Harrien, what? I’m old enough for a boyfriend.” Harrien had never preferred girls, although it had been a closely guarded secret at Hogwarts. He didn’t know why he admitted this here, now, but he was no longer human. Perhaps it was the norm or common among high elves. “Just because I haven’t felt like one yet—“

Voldemort was staring at his in confusion. “You’re an elfling!”

“Why do you keep saying that? I’m a teenager!”

“That’s exactly my point. Lord Harrien, age between high elves and wizards is completely different.”

“No, it’s not,” he responded in confusion. “I’m a year away from being an adult.”

“You’re five hundred years away,” Voldemort told him desperately.

“You lie. I’m older then than sixteen. If I needed to be five hundred and was only sixteen, then wouldn’t I be an infant?”

Voldemort looked defeated. “I honestly wouldn’t know.”

Harrien stared at him. “Well,” he insisted, “I would be.”

Their eyes locked, a battle moving between them, and Voldemort was the first to look away. Harrien looked down at his book, but couldn’t find interest in it. He moved out of the garden and black flowers sprang wherever he stepped, but Harrien hardly noticed. Breaking out into a run, he opened a back door and ran up a marble staircase. He didn’t realize he was crying until he ended up in a small room, which was a study.

“Lord Harrien.”

He looked over. “Oh. Mr. Malfoy.”

He gave his a sad smile. “Is everything not to your preference? I had hoped we had made you comfortable.”

Pushing tears from his eyes, he nodded. “You and Mrs. Malfoy have been wonderful, I just had a fight with Voldemort.” He sobbed again.

Putting down his quill, Lucius Malfoy moved toward him. “I was just writing to my youngest daughter,” he explained. “I have three children. Draco is sixteen, Lacerta fourteen, and my youngest is eleven. She just entered Hogwarts.”

Harrien looked up, shocked. He had only ever heard of Draco. He had no idea he had sisters let alone Lacerta and—“What’s her name?”

“Iolanthe. It means ‘violet flower’.” He gave him a small smile of a truly proud father. “We almost lost her when she was born. She is truly precious to us.—However, what I meant is that I am a father. Perhaps I can understand?”

“Why should I trust you?” he asked. “You’re—human.”

“I am,” he agreed carefully. “However, you are my guest and if you need advice, then as your host it is my duty to make sure you get everything you need. I may be a Death Eater, but I will advise you if I can. You are reaching maturity so you are equivalent to Draco’s age. Let me help you, Lord Harrien.”

“Voldemort says I’m a child when I told him I was sixteen. He said I needed to be five hundred. However, if being sixteen of five hundred makes me an ‘elfling’ wouldn’t I be an infant? I am almost an adult. I know I am. Why won’t he believe me?”

Lucius Malfoy looked at him in interest. “Why does it matter? He will still treat you with respect. Your age will not change that.”

“I—“ He paused. “It matters.”

His blue eyes gazed into his deep green ones. “You have to learn why it matters then I can better help you. This argument is a surface argument. It represents something else. You have to figure out what that is first.” He moved from where he was sitting and poured him a glass of a pale purple liquid. “We call this ‘elven wine.’ It’s nothing of the sort but only young ladies and gentlemen of fourteen and above may drink it. When I say fourteen, I mean young wizards who are within a few years of maturity. For an elf that would be maybe four hundred and twenty five. I am giving this to you to show my faith in you and your age, Lord Harrien.” He handed it to him before retrieving a glass of amber liquid from his desk. “I will inform the house elves to always give you a glass at dinner.”

“Thank you, Mr. Malfoy.”

“Think nothing of it.”

Although they sat beside each other at meals, Voldemort and Harrien barely spoke to each other for days. Harrien noticed him staring at the elven wine, but he didn’t comment on it. He would sit near Harrien in the evenings when he read his book. Still he said nothing.

When the news broke that Harrison Potter had been abducted, a few of them were sitting in the garden. It was growing cold but there were charms to keep the air warm and the flowers blooming although the trees were turning. “He clearly is not a runaway,” Rabastan read, “as he left all of his belongings behind including his wand.”

Yes, Harrison’s wand. It had been decommissioned and left in his trunk when he had stolen Dumbledore’s wand. Harrien’s one regret was that he had left his Peverell cloak behind.

“I wonder who took him,” Bellatrix laughed. “I don’t think it was any of us.”

“Dumbledore then,” Narcissa suggested. “He made it look like it was us to gain sympathy and is keeping Potter as his secret weapon, whatever that means.”

This made Harrien actually laugh, a low breathy sound. Everyone turned to him and he merely looked at them blankly in response. “Perhaps he walked away,” he offered. “He’s famous. Certainly he’s earned a great deal of gold. He could be anywhere. Would the goblins say if he accessed it?”

“No,” Voldemort noted. “No, they wouldn’t.”

“Cousin Sirius is also his godfather. He could give his access to Black Heath where we grew up,” Narcissa sneered. “He unfortunately owns it.”

“All those memories,” Rodolphus murmured.

Harrien wasn’t looking at them anymore and was wandering away out of the garden. His bare feet rustling through fallen leaves, he moved toward the tree line and when he could no longer see the manor, he ripped the side of his thick white leggings and climbed a tree. The oak whispered to him of its love of the elves and how they had all withdrawn from wizards’ Britain and it didn’t know where they had gone, and he whispered back, “Neither do I.”

He remained there for hours until the sun began to set. Jumping lightly from a high branch he walked back toward the manor and stopped when he noticed Voldemort waiting for him. Voldemort was also not wearing shoes, his feet pale in the dirt, reminding Harrien of when he rose from the cauldron in the Little Hangleton cemetery. He was wearing a similar robe. “You are not a child,” he stated.

“What makes you say so?” Harrien asked, moving past him, but Voldemort grabbed his arm.

“We both know it’s true.”

They stared at each other and Voldemort leaned down barely an inch so that their eyes were perfectly aligned. “This is wrong. You’re not human,” he whispered.

Hurt, Harrien hissed as if he were the wind. “Let me go,” he demanded.

“My heart won’t let me and you said you would be my heart. It must be you that holds me so.”

“What are you saying?”

His lips met Harrien’s gently and he breathed in, and Harrien realized this is what he had been waiting for. However, it did not feel like he thought it would. Harrien gently pulled away from him and turned back toward the forest. He nearly collided with someone’s chest. He had not even heard a whisper of someone’s approach.

“Do not touch him,” this person commanded, his voice fierce but musical. “You are human, mortal, and he is a few decades from maturity.” The tone was aching of a tree’s knowledge and Harrien looked up to see skin almost as pale as his own, a long face, sharp ears, blue eyes, and nearly white hair that fell down the creature’s back. “I am Silevren.”

“Harrien,” he answered in shock. “Why are you here?”

“The forests speak.” His eyes hungrily looked at him, as if he were something precious that had been thought lost for so long.

“The forest speaks,” Harrien answered, remembering the tree. “I am not a child.”

“Not for much longer.—Lord Voldemort. We thank you for keeping the son of our people safe. However, you may never again touch him.”

Looking over his shoulder, Harrien saw Voldemort press his lips together in anger but he bowed respectfully.

“Are these your preferred clothes?” Silevren asked, looking down at Harrien.

He shook his head. “No. I’ve been wearing thick tunics here, but they are too warm. I have one to my liking inside.”

“Then I shall attend you before I take you back to the forests of our people.” He placed a hand on the small of his back and they walked inside. Everyone paused and watched as the two moved through the manor until the two elves were in Harrien’s room, Harrien picking out the outfit he had arrived in. He placed the eldar wand on the bedside stand, but Silevren took it and he put it on his pillow. “We will teach you our magic.”

Pausing, Harrien realized he was somehow now an elf and perhaps should accept what Silevren said. “I was not always a high elf,” he told him. “I became one.”

“You were always a high elf,” he told Harrien. “You were placed in hiding. I cannot tell you what happened as I do not know who you were when you were born. You aged as a human might, Harrien. How many human years are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Four hundred and seventy. You have much to learn. Never tell anyone that Lord Voldemort kissed you. Your first kiss is to go to your betrothed. However, you were not to know. I only wish I could have been a few minutes sooner… I apologize, Harrien.”

“I—“ He moved to the wash room and changed.

Silevren held out his hand to him but Harrien hesitated. “You are my people? Elves are good to one another? Humans can be cruel and hurt each other. You see what this war has done. Before I learned of magic, I was a child servant and slept in a cupboard.”

“You will be treasured, elfling. Hush now.” His hand was extended again.

With a breath, Harrien’s hand was placed within his.

**To be Continued ...**


End file.
